Children and young peoples (urgent and emergency paediatrics) services.

Thank you to everyone who has given their time to get involved, there have been many good questions and consideration of the issues.

Summary statistics from the consultation process:

380 attendances at public events to date

499 people have responded to the on-line and paper survey

5,320 new users to the website since 5th July

6,121 new users to the website since consultation promotion started on 21st June

4,000 direct surveys issued to patients with recent experiences of services under consultation

834 street surveys completed

Independent review of consultation processes

In order to ensure a good consultation process, the NHS partners have asked the independent Consultation Institute to conduct a quality assurance review. At the mid-term position in August the review concluded that the Path to Excellence consultation process is on track for a ‘Best Practice’ certification.

Some of the feedback from the Consultation Institute included that they were satisfied that we addressed areas highlighted in the pre-consultation review such as governance, engagement with MPs, equality analysis for consultation activity, website refinement, plans for wider staff and clinical engagement and travel and transport impact.

The Clinical Commissioning Groups are very clear that the consultation options are open to be influenced, so if there are alternative models or suggestions emerging from staff or other groups it really is important that we hear about these to ensure they are included in the consultation process within the consultation time frame.

If individuals or groups require help in putting options forward, such as help with data or analysis, please get in touch with the programme and we are happy to provide some assistance.

Additional public events taking place

An additional nine events were announced at the end of August including dedicated events on maternity and paediatrics, as well as dedicated question and answer style sessions.

These have been arranged in direct response to public feedback and all details are on the Path to Excellence website.

Travel and transport event

A dedicated travel and transport event will take place on Wednesday 4th October at The Sea Hotel, South Shields between 6-9pm.

This session will give people the chance to hear directly from the independently (not the NHS) commissioned travel and transport impact assessment providers, ITP, and in particular give people the opportunity to put forward ideas and suggestions on how travel and transport impact could be minimised.

We are really keen to hear suggestions of practical solutions that would help people to access services that are changed as a result of the consultation.

The feedback from this event will have an important role in a future stakeholder event the NHS is organising later in October with transport and travel organisations and partners and is the start of a working group around practical solutions to minimise travel and transport impact as a result of any future changes to NHS services.

We ask people to register in advance in order to ensure we have the right number of NHS staff to support discussions so all feedback is captured, recorded, reported on and to therefore influence the outcome of the consultation and that the information is used in the second stakeholder/partner session.

The questions and answers documents have been collected from questions asked in the public meetings to date.

The fact sheets provide a summary of the reasons why these services need to change as well as summarising the difference these changes will make to the people of South Tyneside and Sunderland. We hope people find them useful.

Focus group activity

A very big thank you to the community and voluntary organisations who are taking part in ‘focus group fortnight’ and are helping to ensure specific groups and communities have their voices heard in the consultation.

Focus group fortnight is running from 11th – 24th September and the Path to Excellence Programme has been supporting third sector and interest groups with:

Online and telephone support if required on how to run an effective focus group with stakeholders/service users

Free webinar online training session with our team of experts, including practical tips on how to run an effective focus group took place on Wednesday 6th September at 2pm

Focus group toolkit – discussion guide and tools

Payment of £100 plus reasonable event expenses

Requirement to provide a short output report of each focus group feedback to the Path to Excellence

Requirement to request data monitoring information from participants and provide that data back to the Path to Excellence to monitor equalities.

All third sector and interest groups in South Tyneside and Sunderland have the opportunity to hold a focus group and receive the enhanced support during focus group fortnight and we currently have over 20 sessions scheduled.

It is vital that each and every member of staff is given the opportunity to input their views as part of the formal consultation process and both Trusts are openly encouraging active participation.

In July a series of staff summer briefings were held and a detailed Q&A document was circulated to all staff to share feedback on the questions raised. Several clinician-led staff consultation sessions are currently taking place across City Hospitals Sunderland and South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trusts giving staff the opportunity to have in-depth discussions with clinical leaders, share their views on the potential future options and put forward any other ideas for consideration.

Over 250 staff have registered for these events so far which are being actively promoted via internal and external channels as many staff are on social media. All feedback gained from staff will be shared with the CCGs for inclusion in the independent analysis of consultation feedback.

Reminder to ensure you provide a submission to the consultation

As part of the consultation process, it is very important that we hear a range of views from the public, staff, stakeholders and wider partners.

We would very much welcome organisational and group response to the consultation proposals.

You have until midnight on Sunday 15th October to give us your submission.

Please see below for details on how to contact the programme.

It’s the statutory responsibility of the clinical commissioning groups to make the final decision – this will be done at their governing body meetings to be held in public early in 2018. Once these dates are set we will update public and stakeholders about the decision making process, dates and venues for this meeting.